Ten minutes after seeing his daughter for the first time since she was a toddler, and he'd already made her cry. Score one for Dad of the Year.
He knew that he'd been harsh to her, but what the hell had she been thinking? Running off the way she had, she probably had her mother scared half to death. And to what end? To find out the 'truth' about her mother? What 'truth' was there to tell?
He could hear her sobs from outside the tower and he tensed. It didn't help that the awkward, tension-filled silence was so thick it was practically strangling him. And the look of pity on Naruto's face certainly wasn't helping things either.
Silently, Naruto took his leave, intending to go check on the girl. Sasuke glared at his katana, feeling his chest grow uncomfortably tight at the memory of how close he'd been to slicing open her throat. What kind of father couldn't even recognize his own daughter's face?
"I can't believe I'm doing this..." ChouChou sighed, before thrusting a bag of potato chips Sasuke's direction. "Give these to Sarada and you'll definitely win her over." She looked at him expectantly, clearly already exasperated with him.
Sasuke only glared at the bag. How were potato chips supposed to solve any of this?
Before he could answer his own question, Naruto and Sarada returned. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She refused to look her father in the eye, and Sasuke didn't blame her at all.
At Orochimaru's hide-out, he couldn't help but think of how much she reminded him of her mother. Even if she didn't fully comprehend Orochimaru's reasoning for creating the clones, she was intrigued by the process and the result. She wanted to know more, and the snake was a willing teacher.
She had her mother's temper, but she'd undoubtedly inherited his impatience. It was clear in the way she'd broken away from the group, determined to find her own way. It was also apparent in the way she'd shoved the picture of himself, Karin, and Suigetsu in his face, demanding to know more about the woman.
Sarada... Did she think that Karin was her mother? Was that what she had been referring to back in the tower?
Sasuke tried to meet the girl's eyes, but she looked away with a huff. Clearly, he hadn't lived up to the idol she'd created in her head.
Sakura had sent him numerous pictures of their little Sarada as she grew up (well, technically sent them through Naruto, the only one who knew his exact location at any given time), but he now realized that she didn't live up to expectations, either. She far exceeded anything he could have hoped for in a child.
And now, she wouldn't even look at him.
ChouChou shook her head disapprovingly. He should've taken the potato chips when he had the chance.
Nobody said a word when Sarada broke off from the pack, the rest following Orochimaru into a room with a monitor. But Sasuke found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the snake's voice... His little girl was now in serious danger thanks to her curiosity and Sasuke's less-than-forthcoming demeanor. And his wife was currently in some other dimension with one of Orochimaru's experiments.
Yeah... Just like old times.
Except for, back then, he'd been desperately seeking power to make himself strong enough to avenge his massacred clan. Now, he'd avenged his clan, and had even been given the chance to begin to rebuild it (not that he could fathom how he deserved it)... And in ten minutes, he'd fucked it all up - royally.
"Naruto, would you get Sarada? I don't know where she wandered off to, but it's time to leave." Sasuke said stiffly.
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you go and find her?"
Sasuke didn't seem to be overly thrilled by the idea. "I think we both know that that isn't a good idea." As much as it killed him to admit it, he continued, "Right now, you're the one that she'll listen to. You're the one that she needs. I'll just push her further away."
"She's still your daughter, teme." Naruto said seriously. Despite the stoic mask on his best friend's face, he could see how much this was hurting Sasuke. He was losing the one thing that he'd always wanted: a family.
"Yeah..." Sasuke trailed off, starting to move to the exit of the hide-out. "That's the problem."
After the battle, Sasuke watched as Sakura desperately clutched their daughter, thanking the heavens that she was alright while cursing her for being so foolish and running off. They seemed to share a bond that Sasuke could never hope to comprehend... A bond formed over the years that he'd been absent.
This was only confirmed when Sarada, smiling, informed her mother that she no longer cared whether or not they were biologically related. What really mattered were the bonds that they shared, that their hearts were connected.
"Papa, do you think that you heart is connected to Mama's?" Sarada asked. It was the first thing she'd said to him since their fight, if one could even call it that.
Sasuke looked at his little girl. She was still hurting, but she was trying to be strong. Trying her best to face her demons and put the fight they'd had behind her. "Yes, I do."
Tears were collecting in her onyx eyes. "How do you know?"
"Because we have you... Sarada." He said.
This seemed to sway her slightly, but she was far from forgiveness. He'd hurt her in their first encounter, crushed her dreams of everything her absentee father would be...
He could only imagine the way that Sakura would have built him up in her mind. He must have seemed superhuman to Sarada. Wasn't there some sort of saying about a father being his daughter's first love? Now, he was probably Sarada's greatest nightmare.
Sarada was watching him from the safety of her mother's arms. It hurt to see that she thought she needed protection from him.
Bubbling just beneath the surface of the hurt was pride as well. He couldn't have been more impressed with how she'd handled herself in battle. She hadn't been the slightest bit afraid, and had shown mastery of jutsus that had taken her parents years to learn. Obviously, she'd benefited from training with her mother. She'd even managed to activate her sharingan. How could he not be immensely proud of her?
"Sarada..." in that moment, he chose to tempt fate, taking a step closer to his daughter. He tried to ignore the way she flinched. "There's something I need to tell you."
Sarada watched him, her onyx eyes wide. Sakura rubbed the girl's back soothingly. "What?"
In that moment, he closed the distance between them, kneeling down in front of her. "I'm sorry. For everything." Sakura's eyes widened marginally. To her knowledge, Sasuke had only ever apologized once before - to her. "Everything I did... It was for you and your mother. It was to protect the two of you from the monsters of the world."
"Papa..." Sarada trailed off, softening immediately when she saw a tear drip from her father's visible eye. Sasuke didn't even realize he was crying.
"But now I see that you think that I am a monster." Sasuke finished softly. "I wasn't there for you when you needed me. You search me out with questions about your identity, and I almost kill you. I know that I'm probably not what you expected."
Sarada was silent for a moment, and he feared she wouldn't respond. He was beginning to wonder if he should've taken the other girl's advice and just bribed her with a bag of potato chips. Was that how you won over normal children? He didn't think he would've magically forgiven Itachi for all the potato chips in the world... but then there was Naruto and his ramen...
And then, she broke out in the widest grin Sasuke had ever seen. And in that moment, his heart was constricting for an entirely different reason. "Are you kidding? You're a total bad-ass! You completely cleaned house back there!"
Okay... not exactly what he'd been expecting. But when she rushed into his arms, squeezing him with as much strength as she could muster, he realized that that was alright.
Not everything had to go exactly according to plan.
A/N: Was I the only one bothered by how quickly Sarada just up and forgave Sasuke for what happened in the tower? Like one minute she hates him, the next she's begging him not to leave again. So this is just a little fill-in-the-blank. Hope you enjoyed! Please remember to review!